


peter parker's "small favor"

by devilfic



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Spider-Man: Far From Home, F/M, Fluff, M/M, Other, Pining, Precious Peter Parker, added a second part bc of course, journalist!reader, peter and reader are in their twenties, peter gets hurt and needs your help, reader works for jjj but only out of spite (capitalism), takes place a couple years after far from home if far from home didn't end the way it did :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24948322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilfic/pseuds/devilfic
Summary: as one of spider-man's most trusted media sources, you are the first to hear from the masked hero on everything regarding his superhero activity. one night, he comes swinging by your apartment, hurt, and asks you for a small favor... or two.alternatively titled: "someone please pet peter parker's head."
Relationships: Peter Parker/Reader, Peter Parker/You
Comments: 24
Kudos: 211





	1. small favor

“Spider-Man?” Your eyes adjust to the darkness of the room about as quickly as your mind does to the sudden intrusion, which is to say not very quickly at all, “What are you doing here? It’s Monday.”

Technically, it was probably midnight or past that so it wasn’t actually Monday anymore. You had been so engrossed in polishing up your latest article for the Web-Blog that you hadn’t noticed the natural passage of time, only picking up on the distant knock at your living room window that broke your comfortable silence, and then the confusion had settled in promptly after that. You weren’t exactly on the first floor, so if anyone was knocking on your living room window, it surely wasn’t someone you wanted to cross paths with.

Until you remembered you had a web-slinging client who often preferred your fire escape over the front door.

You’d rushed from your comfy couch to the curtains and ripped them open, heart momentarily sinking at the dark outline of a masked figure pressed up against the wet glass. He  _ never _ came by unannounced.

By the time you’d peeled the old window open to let him inside, he had already swung in and turned off every light in the vicinity. You knew what that meant. It was the deal, anyway. Shut the curtains, stay out of arm’s reach, know only his voice, and he’d let you bleed him dry for intel all you wanted. Suited up, there was never a reason for him to shroud himself in darkness unless you offered him tea (or coffee, for the late patrols and even later-night talks). Even the smallest sliver of skin exposed to your eyes could prove dangerous in the wrong situation… which is why you were starting to grow nervous.

You can only make out his shape moving to and fro by the NYC lights that break through your now shut curtains. He moves away from the loveseat you’d been curled up on under lamplight to head toward your front door, checking the locks as usual. A habit, a must. “You haven’t seen anything weird around here lately, right? Like… big men with machine guns for arms?” Calls his boyish voice for the first time tonight, tense.

You stand obediently by the window with your hands clasped behind your back and let yourself run through all the possible incidents he could be referring to. It was never a boring day in this city, but you honestly couldn’t say you had any clue what he was talking about. “Uh, no. Haven’t heard a peep. Have  _ you _ ?”

Spider-Man affords you a laugh as he finally moves from your front door to face you, “I’ve heard more than a peep… which is kind of why I have a favor to ask of you. I understand if it’s too much, I just really didn’t want to pass out in an alleyway again.”

You try to ignore the “again” in favor of moving further into the room, squinting into the dark, “Anything for you, Spidey. What’s the favor?”

“Can I borrow your first-aid kit?”

Twenty minutes later and you can hear soft grunting coming from the bathroom down the hall, giving off the only substantial light in your entire apartment. You wait in the kitchen making tea, staying alert just in case he needs assistance patching his wounds, but he constantly insists that he’ll be fine, that he’s done it a million times before, that he was already healing and “You know me! It’ll take a lot more than a few bullets to kill me.”

It’s the first time he’s ever made a personal house-call like this. Your meetings were often scheduled: every Thursday evening, around 10 or 11, he’d stop by your place to give you the hefty deets on any new crimes or villains arising in New York. You were one of the lucky few news sources that Spider-Man himself entrusted to tell the truth, always, and for that, you had skyrocketed to fame in the journalism world (especially for Spidey enthusiasts like yourself). He had even been so kind as to offer you a one-on-one interview early on in your blogging career, giving you the ol’ Spidey Stamp of Approval. You could still remember the night he’d e-mailed you personally, arranging the albeit strange meeting at a bodega downtown to finally meet the anonymous Web-Blog owner in person.

By day, people like your boss, J. Jonah Jameson, often got off on selling lies about him in the press. By night, it was people like you that gave him the justice he deserved.

But you were the only person who got to see him like this- well, maybe “see” wasn’t the right word.

As part of a binding agreement between the two of you, you had to promise to never look into his true identity. Your journalism was strictly confined to his work in the city and helping expose shady activity to law enforcement and the masses. Not many people could be trusted with having  _ the _ Spider-Man in their living room every week like mommy book club for crime-fighting vigilantes, and for that, you held strong to your promise.It was an honor, but also a great test of faith. You were a journalist after all. You couldn’t help but want to know what lies beneath the mask. 

“How bad did you get hit this time?” You call out to him, allowing yourself the light of the range hood to guide his preferred amount of honey into his mug. It was a cute one you’d been gifted by a friend so many years back, one that he said he really liked because of the depiction of the Hulk as a cat printed on the side.

“On a scale of, like, that one angry pottery lady to the blip? Uh, maybe like a peg or two below Vulture.”

Doing the mental math, you can calculate that it’s no walk in the park. “You sure that first-aid kit’s gonna cut it? You might need to go to the hospital… or Wakanda.” 

“I’m fine!” He yells back, “besides, it’s gonna get much worse from here on out. Tonight was just child’s play.”

You wince. Spider-Man often talked about his escapades with such ease that he often forgot you were a very average civilian. Having men with machine guns for arms being considered child’s play left an awful taste in your mouth, especially when you were forcibly reminded of your favorite hero’s mortality. By all means, he exceeded most of the human population in biological structure alone, but he was still human. If he got too hurt…

You take the mugs with you to the living room and set them on the coffee table, then tuck yourself into the couch and wait for Spider-Man to finish up. You hear the light switch off behind you a few moments later, followed by barely-there footsteps. It’s only then that you realize you left the light on in the kitchen. 

“Wait,” you tell him, without turning, “I forgot the light-” A sharp  _ thwip! _ sound flies past your ear and finds its target as the light in the kitchen dissolves into darkness. He never failed to impress you with his pinpoint accuracy. 

“You made tea? In the Hulkitty cup? You’re the best!” He says excitedly, and you wonder how he hadn’t picked up on that as if his spidey senses weren’t tuned into everything, including the monstrously loud sound of your microwave going off earlier. He swings around the couch to sit on the other end, and you spare a quick glance at his silhouette to see that his mask is still off. Tufts of hair seem to stick out all over his head. 

You notice, too, that something drapes off the upper half of his body- ah, his suit. He probably hadn’t pulled it back up yet to avoid irritating his wounds any more than he already had by swinging over here. You furiously hide your curious thoughts about what lurks near you by taking a sip from your cup, ignoring what you could only kind of see in your peripheral.

You notice the outline of his gloved hand reaching for his cup and he carefully blows on the tea, issuing you another thanks before taking a sip as well. He was always such a big fan of Sleepytime vanilla tea. “So… when you said tonight was just child’s play…”

Spider-Man hums around the mug’s rim, “Yeah, the guys with gun-hands are about 13% of my problems. I think they’re linked to someone bigger. More dangerous. If so, I’m going to have to be prepared.” 

“By bigger and more dangerous, do you mean Kingpin?”

“Ding ding ding,” You can practically hear the smirk in his voice, “Knew you’d catch that. Easily puts him several steps above Vulture.”

“Sounds really dangerous, Spidey.” You mumble, taking your own tea into your hands and staring into the dark abyss of the cup. “You gonna be okay? You should probably have someone help you if that’s the case.”

You can’t help how concerned you are, and though it’s embarrassing to sound like a parent over a literal  _ superhero _ , you can’t mask it. Kingpin had been terrorizing your city for years, and if Spider-Man was going to go up against him all alone, it would be nothing short of a bloodbath. That man had his stamp on  _ every _ part of the city. Spider-Man wouldn’t be going up against just one uber powerful guy or a building of thugs, he’d be going up against… almost half of NYC’s crime network. 

It seems he can feel your mounting nervousness because you feel his covered hand touch your arm, the most contact you’d been allowed with the hero since your deal had first been forged. He gives you a small, light squeeze, “Listen- it’s okay if I touch you?” He asks, and though you can’t make eye contact with him, you do feel the sincerity in his question as you nod, “Right, cool, okay. I know what you’re thinking. I’m not going into this blind. Contrary to popular Jameson belief, I actually  _ do _ have common sense.” That rouses a laugh out of you, if nothing.

“I know you do, it’s just… you do a lot for this city, Spidey. I don’t ever want to see the day where I have to… I have to write your eulogy. You know? You’re a lot of people's only hope. You’re  _ my _ only hope. I don’t know what I’d do if I woke up to news that something happened to you, rather than hearing it from you myself.” 

He understood that, sat with that. He’d heard that same kind of fear from everyone who loved him enough times to know that he was not indestructible. But those were people who knew the other side of him. You didn’t. You didn’t even know his real name. And yet you still cared. “Then I promise I won’t die. After all, you’d probably be riding my ass to hell if I did.”

“You’re damn right!” You giggle. He matches you with a lighthearted laugh and a little of the tension in your shoulders dissipates some.

“Oh, hey… can I ask you for another favor?”

You perk up again, setting your now cold tea down on the coffee table. “‘Course.”

“Could you… um, this is gonna sound  _ really weird _ , and I promise I’m not some creep who gets off on this kind of thing-” 

“A statement like that usually alludes to the contrary.”

“-but could you touch my head?”

Wait, what? “Wait,  _ what _ ?”

Perhaps it’s best that it’s so dark, so that at least you can’t see how embarrassed he looks right now. “Heh, well… it’s just… I think I might have hit it really bad during the fight but I can’t really see anything back there on my own. It felt kinda normal, but I just want another opinion. I swear I wouldn’t ask unless I thought it was serious.”

Of course you knew that. No matter the geniality of your relationship, Spider-Man was always very strict about contact. The fact that he was even asking this of you told you how serious he was being. It was also becoming very hard not to fall back on telling him to go to a doctor again because you both knew that he’d just refuse again. There’d be no way to explain his kinds of injuries, especially the wounds he’d come here for. It was more work to deal with when he was already busy enough. But also, you’d never actually  _ touched _ him like this before.

You’d come close, sure, plenty of times, but it was rare and always through his suit. You had no idea of the texture of his skin, what lay there had yet to be discovered by light or your touch and perhaps for good reason. Any information you could file away about his appearance was dangerous for him. “I don’t mind checking, but you do realize I’d need to turn on a light, right?”

“A flashlight is enough!”

“... _ probably _ . But what if I accidentally caught sight of your face-”

You feel something get dropped into your hand and you realize very belatedly that it’s a phone. It’s warm from the close contact it’s had with Spider-Man’s body, and as you run your thumb over the surface of the screen, you feel several jagged ridges where it had been cracked. You tap the screen and the screen lights up with some science joke for a wallpaper and a prompt to put in a passcode. Before you can bother to ask, Spider-Man reaches across the screen and taps the flashlight icon, casting an instant white light over the skin of your knee. Your breath hitches as it bounces off the red of his suit leg. “I’ll turn around.” He instructs, shuffling.

You don’t even dare to look up from your legs until he’s shifted with his back to you, and from there you follow the indirect light that trails up his milky, naked spine littered with bruises all the way to a head of short, chestnut hair. Near his crown, there’s crusted blood on his roots. You shift slowly until your kneeling on the couch cushions and watch Spider-Man tense, fists clenched on his knees. As gentle as you can be, you reach up to the problem site and push the hair away until you can see the injured flesh underneath.

There’s more dried blood there but whatever wound that might’ve been seems to have healed by now. It looks unfortunate though, the skin colored by bruising and red, and there was no doubt that he’d be suffering the effects of a concussion if it hadn’t worn off already. “It’s mostly healed,” you whisper, your breath rustling the tendrils that curled around your fingers, “but there’s still blood. I’m going to touch it okay? Let me know if it hurts.” 

Spider-Man gives you a soft hum of approval and you gingerly prod the wound, staying tuned into his reaction. He doesn’t really jerk, having prepared himself, but even as he lightly hisses, he doesn’t tell you to stop. You press around the wound and he has even less of a reaction. It didn’t seem like it’d be a huge problem. 

You peel back some, making sure to keep the light of his phone trained on the wound, “I can clean it if you’d like?”

“Yeah,” he whispers, “I’d really appreciate it.”

You make your way through your dark apartment without the flashlight, deciding to leave it beside him to make him more comfortable. The entire time you gather the medical supplies he’d neatly tucked away (the manners he had were greatly appreciated), your heart is pounding like the beat of a bison’s hoof against your ribcage. Besides the overwhelming scent of iron and gunpowder and salt (as expected after a fight as gruesome as the one he’d just escaped), his hair smells like almonds.

You make your way back to where his form is still sitting on the couch and begin to wet a cloth with cleaning supplies before getting to work, making sure to keep the light guided properly. You would be lying if you said your eyes didn’t trace the nape of his neck where his hair curled more than once, nor the moles and beauty marks that dotted his skin down his back. Was it weird to say that simply the image of his back was kind of cute? God, what if he could sense how nervous you were? The pounding of your heart was surely strong enough.

Nevertheless, you cleaned his wound dutifully, taking care not to hurt him any further. If he was pretending to be strong, he was doing a marvelous job. No amount of prodding pulled any sizeable reaction from him, and after a couple of minutes, you had removed most of the blood from his scalp and hair, admiring the way the wet pieces rolled up into themselves. Taking advantage of the moment, you let yourself run your fingers through his hair as you finished up, explaining it away to yourself as just picking apart any tangled strands or lasting bloody residue. It was just so  _ soft _ ! Could you really be blamed? He didn’t seem to mind either. He’d stayed dutifully still and quiet under your ministrations the entire time. Almost too still.

“All done! You should be good to go, just take it easy on your way home, okay? ...Spidey? Spidey, did you hear-” 

You lightly touch his shoulder, shaking him some, and that’s when you hear it: a  _ snore _ . He… had fallen asleep.

It was probably more comical than it should have been given that he remained sitting straight up despite his unconscious state, but there was no doubt that the steady rhythm of his breathing was due to a rather deep and sudden sleep. You’d actually be more worried if he wasn’t lightly snoring every few seconds. 

Right before you went to shake him back awake, you halted your movements. He’d been through quite the fight earlier and probably hadn’t been able to rest for a while. On top of that, he was definitely in a lot of pain. Sleep was the best thing for him now and you didn’t even want to imagine how painful it would be for him to swing back home like this. Walking the streets this late at night wouldn’t do him any favors either. But also… could he really stay here?

You knew deep down that you’d never break the trust he put in you, but what if you let him sleep here and he woke up thinking you’d taken a look at his face? He’d never trust you again. It takes you a few minutes of anxious deliberation before you decide what you’ll do. 

You didn’t have the heart to disturb him.

You clear the couch and turn off his flashlight before moving him to lay down. Your eyes stay focused on the other side of the room as you lay his head down on a throw pillow. He doesn’t wake even then. 

The blanket thrown over the back of the couch is then pulled down and you raise it until it’s laying over his face and most of his upper body, making sure it wouldn’t obstruct his breathing while he slept. When his visage is properly covered, revealing only the hair on his head, you lay his mask and phone on the coffee table beside his Hulkitty mug. Then, when everything looks okay, you make the very nerve-filled trek to your bedroom to (attempt to) sleep for the night. You could only hope he wouldn’t be too upset with you in the morning. 

The next day, you wake surprisingly past your usual time. A quick glance at your phone tells you that it’s nearly noon now. You’re about ready to make whatever pleading call you have to in order for Jameson to forgive you for being late when your mind starts to replay the events of last night with startling clarity… shit, was he still here?

Throwing yourself up with more force than probably needed, you practically sprint to the living room in a fit of panic. You’re half-expecting to find a still passed out Spider sprawled on your couch, but a wave of relief (and... disappointment?) washes over you when you find the living room emptier than you’d left it. The mugs had been moved to the drying rack in the kitchen, the last few drops of dishwater rolling off the image of Hulkitty telling you that Spidey had nicely taken the time to clean them for you. 

The medical supplies had also been put away again, and in place of where you’d draped him with your blanket, you instead find it neatly folded like it had been before. If it wasn’t for the very vivid memories of tucking Spider-Man into bed last night, you might’ve convinced yourself it was all a dream. 

You were honestly just glad that it seemed he hadn’t been insulted by your choice to let him remain asleep last night. In your sleep-induced haze, you walk over to the curtains to let in the early noon sunlight, already fabricating a good enough excuse for your readers regarding the missing early morning blog update that you’d been interrupted from working on. As you approach one of the windows, you notice that one of them already has its curtains pulled back slightly. Getting closer, you notice too that there’s a plastic bag sitting on the chair beside it. Curious, you get close enough to smell the faint scent of… flour tortillas?

Opening the bag, you find three foil covered items that smell a hell of a lot like the breakfast tacos from the Mexican restaurant down the street. You reach inside and find a napkin neatly folded with some marker ink staining the fabric, written in what you can only discern as Spider-Man’s chicken scratch. 

**_Thanks for last night._ **

**_Sorry for ruining the sleepover._ **

**_Promise I’ll at least bring movies next time. x_ **

You blink. Next… time?


	2. gratitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> peter is nothing if not a man, or should I say, spider of his word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was really only meant to be a one-shot... it honestly might end up being more if people would like to see this continued, but uh... yeah! here's a part two!

You’ve never known Jameson to be particularly forgiving, but when he lets you off on your tardiness with only a slap on the wrist and a promise to gather more fodder for his Spider-Man hate speech, you’re all too eager to get out of the situation while you still can.

Life had since returned to normal after that night. Thursday came and so did Spidey, and while he was forthcoming about any new leads, he didn’t mention his note despite it weighing so heavily on your mind. It was business as usual, so you safely assumed he’d been joking about that “next time”. Perhaps, for your self-esteem, you also decided not to think about how upsetting it was to consider his proposal as a “joke”. Nevertheless, you wouldn’t allow yourself to get caught up in trivial things like that. After all, you were lucky enough just being able to talk to the hero. A movie date- er, movie  _ night _ would be a blessing to fit into his assuredly busy schedule. 

Shortly after posting a mini life update to the Web-Blog, you scurry on to bed for an early night… and not twenty minutes of not-sleeping later, your phone goes off with a familiar, very specific ringtone: Spidey’s signature theme song, whistled by the hero in question at your behest. You lunge forward and arrest your cell in a death grip, glaring into the bright screen to see what could possibly be awaiting you, and find yourself at a loss for words.

**_Hey! You busy? I come bearing gifts._ **

**_If you are, I’ll just leave ‘em on the fire escape._ **

Spidey  _ never _ texts you for things like this.

His number was for emergencies only. If you were in danger or happened to be on the scene of a crime before he was, you were given executive permission to contact him. It was also much more convenient in terms of scheduling when you didn’t have to send out a bird call or post something to the Web-Blog like “ _ If you’re not Spider-Man, keep scrolling. Okay, now that it’s just the two of us, can we reschedule Thursday? Mom’s coming to town and she’s going through an anti-hero phase right now _ .”

You didn’t dare text him for anything other than your meetings, and him too, so you could imagine your palpable shock when you sprint to your living room window and find the masked web-slinger waving at you through the glass, mechanical eyes squinting to signal he was smiling.

You prop open the window and he drops in with a rustle of plastic. Belatedly, you realize he’s carrying a bag from a bodega. “Food?”

“Told you I come bearing gifts! I got your favorites, mainly the ones that won’t spoil because I wasn’t sure if you’d be awake by the time I got here.” As he says this, you watch him pile the snacks onto your breakfast bar. One by one, your stomach begins to growl.

“That’s very sweet but... why?” You laugh, folding your arms over your chest. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Spidey shrugs, sounding flustered underneath the mask, “W-Well you know, I promised I’d make it up to you next time I got the chance and...” As he trails off, you notice a suspiciously shaped item still resting in the bag. Your interest is officially piqued. It  _ definitely _ looks like a DVD case.

There’s something really endearing about watching an Avenger stumble over his words in the middle of your apartment, fumbling over a way to say that he’s got a movie for you both to watch if you’re free, but not knowing how to say either of those things without it sounding too much like a- “This isn’t a date.” He assures you, shaking his head at you, “I mean... It’s a friend date. Colleague date? Not a  _ date _ . Gathering, rendezvous- ugh, no, that sounds so weird... Um. I brought a movie. If you want to. Watch it, I mean.”

Something flutters within you thinking about the fact that he makes sure to be incredibly clear (?), as if you’re the only one severely misunderstanding his intentions right now. Regardless, you suddenly don’t feel as sleepy anymore. “Which movie did you bring?”

* * *

“I bring you the absolute junkiest of foods and you still want to bake something?”

Spidey swings his legs back and forth, sitting atop your kitchen counter as he lazily inspects your bag of chocolate chips. The idea to bake some homemade cookies for the occasion had come to mind almost as quickly as his appearance at your home that night. You’d had the ingredients sitting in your cabinet for a while now anyway, and if you were going to make them for anyone, it was going to be NYC’s friendly neighborhood spider (you also wanted to impress him with your baking skills, but that was neither here nor there). “You’re going to eat them anyway! Why are you complaining?”

When your back is turned to him, you can hear him laugh through a mouthful of something, “‘m not! I’m just saying,” you hear him rustling a plastic bag, probably near his mouth, and have a strong feeling that he’s depleting your chocolate chip supply. You hold your hand behind you, signaling for him to hand them over, “maybe I should’ve texted you first. Then maybe I would’ve brought stuff to make a cake with.”

You feel the bag plop in your hand and giggle, “A cake?! Who bakes a cake for a movie night?”

Spidey matches your laugh as you feel the air become displaced behind you. Despite the lights being all the way on (“I’d rather you not burn yourself, alright?”) and the hero remaining fully dressed, the faint memory of what lies underneath his suit carries itself with him everywhere he goes in your apartment. Especially, as he stands behind you, you can recall flashes of skin and his unruly mane atop his head, but it feels like your memory is foggy. You curse yourself for remembering it so poorly. Even your dreams were beginning to muddle the facts of his true appearance.

Uh. Not that you were dreaming about him, of course.

His left hand reaches around you to where you’re making the dough and scoops some more chocolate chips from your possession, “It’s less occasion appropriate and more of an excuse to come back and get seconds.”

You think you’re gonna pass out and he’s not even implying anything! “You’d come back and get seconds even if there were none. You’d probably just make me make you another cake.”

“It’s not for free! I’d be providing ingredients  _ and _ my charming personality,” a silly chuckle is muffled by his mask but still manages to make your knees weak, “I guess I could also take care of that rickety fire escape of yours too.”

“Don’t bother. The whole thing is falling apart. My landlord doesn’t give two shits, so unless you’re willing to dangle him off the Brooklyn bridge until he caves, I’m just going to have to rely on you to swoop me out of here.” You roll your eyes. 

Spidey backs away to toss his newly acquired sweets into his mouth, voice coming out clearer, “I’m not against that. Would be kinda fun playing villain. Or would I be more of an anti-hero? Landlords are like, evil, so I’d probably be doing your building a favor.” All you can do is laugh at the image of Spidey doing such a thing. Jameson would surely have a field day with the “ _ Spider-Man holds helpless, tax-paying citizen hostage! _ ” headlines already forming in your mind.

As soon as you’re finished mixing and separating the dough into nicely shaped balls, you turn around with the baking tray in hand to pop them in the oven, only to find Spidey leaning against your fridge, mask pulled up to expose his grinning lips. 

The shock of it makes you jolt. What was he doing, showing off a part of his face like that? It was only his mouth but-!

Your jolt unfortunately sends your tray into midair, only saved when Spidey lurches forward with unparalleled speed and catches it in his sticky grip. “Whoa there! Wasn’t expecting that violent of a reaction-”

“Your face!” You gasp, feeling more and more like a scandalized Victorian lady than you’d like to, “You left your mask up!”

“On purpose,” he chortles, yanking open your oven door using his webbing and neatly placing the cookies on the top rack, ”easier access for snacks.”

Was he… was he  _ trusting _ you right now? 

You’re not entirely sure what to say because he isn’t explicitly saying that, but you know he’s smart; he wouldn’t take such a risk, however small it seemed, if it meant anything less than trust. As you wring your hands in front of yourself in lieu of something to do, you can’t help how flattered you feel.

“It doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does it? I can pull it back down if it does.” Spidey breaks you out of your reverie, smiling politely. It’s so weird seeing his lips, thin and pink and glossy from where he’d licked off some chocolate, smiling at you. You can make out small beauty marks dotted about his skin, along with faded acne scars along his jawline before the rest of his throat dips beneath the collar of his suit. You try not to stare in fear that you might make  _ him _ uncomfortable.

“N-No! You’re fine. As long as you’re comfortable.”

His smile widens, “Sure am.”

It’s only when the oven beeps to alert you that it has reached the specified temperature that you both break out of your little staring contest. Spidey takes the liberty of closing the oven back and pulling off his webbing to dispose of in your trashcan. “Hey, you could sell that on Ebay. That’s practically gold to your fanclub.” You comment offhandedly, busying yourself with cleaning up your space, still lightheaded from moments before.

“And you’ve got it in your garbage. Guess that means you’re pretty special.”

An insistent flare of heat crawls up your neck at that.

* * *

The cookies come out delicious and Spidey gobbles them up like he hasn’t eaten for hours, ignoring the fact that he had created a sizable dent in the snack horde he bought  _ you _ while waiting for them to bake. You’d have to consider that cake proposition after all. Maybe it’d fill him up enough that you’d have a portion left behind for yourself next time. He isn’t selfish though; he did make sure to save enough for you to confirm the tastiness of the baked goods.

The lights are off now and he is sitting next to you on your couch, watching some overly produced 2000′s action film that he promised wouldn’t absolutely “bore you into picking a new superhero to write about”. Your legs are crossed underneath you and covered by the same blanket you’d used to cover him days ago, hands either fiddling with the now empty bag of Skittles he’d bought you or the fabric of your throw. 

Spidey is sitting somewhat similarly to you. After asking if it was okay, he’s got his right foot up on the coffee table and his left foot tucked underneath his right thigh, hands politely clasped in front of him when he’s not grabbing fistfuls of microwavable popcorn. He mentions that if he wasn’t suited, he would definitely not have his feet up on your couch, but you just tell him the old thing has seen much worse in its day. 

“I wanted to formally thank you, by the way,” he whispers suddenly, in the middle of a tense scene, “for what you did the other day. Giving me shelter, the first-aid kit, cleaning me up, comforting me… everything.”

You flush. The protagonist on screen is biting into a tea towel while stitching up his own stab wound, “It was no big deal. You don’t need to worry about that.” 

“No, but... you know how private I can be. I mean, this job calls for it if you want the people you care about to remain safe. I hadn’t admitted up until then, but I’m sure you could see how much I trust you.”

You keep your eyes trained on the TV in order to ignore the furious thumping of your heart, feeling yourself growing hot under the collar. All of this was pretty new to you, especially with Spidey, and the fact that he was telling you explicitly that he trusted you as more than just a reliable mouthpiece for the city was... well, it felt  _ really _ good.

He trusted you enough to fall asleep – exposed, vulnerable – in your arms. He trusted you enough to leave half his face exposed in your presence when you could easily unmask him if you got his guard down. How many people got that honor? How many people got to see him like this?

You shuffle a little and alternate from picking at your blanket to picking at your fingernails, “I’m just really glad you feel safe enough to come here. Honestly, I was worried sick that you might think I took advantage of you for letting you sleep here that night... you don’t know how much your trust means to me.” You ignore the emotional sting of tears from behind your eyes to smile up at his masked face. If you started crying in front of your hero, you don’t think you’d ever be able to come back from the embarrassment.  _ Don’t be weird, don’t be weird _ .

His eye slits scrunch up as he smiles back, “I’d never think that of you. Spidey senses, remember? I know a good person when I sense one.” 

By the time you both have settled into another comfortable silence, the protagonist is now sliding down an air shaft and kicking the face of a henchman in pure cinematic fashion. You honestly have no clue where the plot is going at this point, but you enjoy your company all the same.

* * *

“So, did it suck?” Spidey asks you, slipping off the couch to stretch his limbs. The end credits roll and a triumphant score plays in the background, nothing of which you haven’t heard before in millions of other movies just like it. Still, you feigned interest until the very end.

“Sure! But doesn’t seeing all that violence bother you given your line of work?” You ask, watching as he begins to dispose of the mess you both left behind. 

Spidey hums, “Nah, not really. It’s kinda funny seeing how dramatic they make it. I learned some of my best moves from John Wick, you know.”

You snort, “I’ve seen the videos on YouTube. If the world knew you were as big of a pop culture nerd as you are, I’m sure you would have been lured in by a villain and an extended edition copy of Lord of the Rings.”

Spidey shoots a small amount of web at your leg in retaliation, laughing to himself as you squeal in surprise. “How dare you think of me so lowly? I’m a luxury few can afford.”

“More like tolerate.”

“You seem to tolerate me just fine.”

A breath of disbelief passes through your lips without your consent, making Spidey grin. You honestly couldn’t count how many times he’d smiled at you tonight, and you only wondered how many times he’d done so behind the mask before. He had a comforting smile. You were happy you were able to see it. “I suppose so.” A yawn escapes you right after, “Oh. What time is it?”

Spidey takes a seat on the couch arm, speaking up, “Hey EDITH, what time is it now?”

“It is currently 2:43 a.m., 3 hours and 8 minutes until sunrise.” EDITH’s animated voice replies back out loud, make your eyes shoot open in surprise. You hadn’t realized you both had been up for so long. “It is perhaps best for both yourself and (Name) to retire for the night.”

“EDITH knows my name?” You ask, never having been mentioned directly by the AI. You assumed it wouldn’t be that far-fetched for Spidey to mention you to it, but now you couldn’t help but wonder all the information it had gathered about you. You shudder to think what the world’s most intelligent AI thought about you.

“Of course, I tell EDITH everything about the people in my life. Mainly for safety reasons.”

“Like what?”

Spidey hums, “Well, if something were to happen to me… EDITH would find a way to get in touch with everyone who knows my identity. EDITH could steer you guys away from danger, make sure you’re taken care of and that none of your information is released to the public. Logistics and all that.”

“So… I’m someone EDITH would contact?”

Spidey laughs nervously, scratching the back of his exposed nape, “Yeah… made the decision two weeks ago,”  _ the day he fell asleep on your couch _ , “You’re risking a lot to meet with me so regularly. It may not seem like it, but it’s true. If someone were able to track you through your blog, God forbid, you’d be in serious danger. Things are still all over the place due to the blip, but I’ve set things up with people I know I can trust to keep you and everyone else I care for safe. I promise you will be okay as long as I have something to say about it.”

You… were someone he cared for. 

It’s true. You’re someone he “trusts”, someone he “cares” for. Something you’ve long since wondered is now confirmed… the late hour isn’t the only thing making you feel like you might just pass out.

After an unintentionally awkward silence, Spidey lifts a hand to your head and gently pats it, “You should probably sleep. Your eyes are starting to look all glassy.”

“Thank you, Spidey.” You tell him, completely ignoring his advice. Instead, you revel in the feeling of his hand that stays nestled on your head, his thumb gently brushing back and forth. “You don’t know how much that means to me.”

You can’t see his eyes, only the way his mouth parts, inhaling deeply. His hand falls from your head and sticks out in front of your face as if asking for a handshake. You look from it to the smile on his mouth, even as his lip trembles lightly, confused. Was he asking for something? Did he want to make a deal with you? Your brain was too foggy to understand. “Wh-”

“Call me Peter. It’s nice to meet you.”


End file.
